By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

A proposal to build a 100-tower wind farm in the southern portion of the county will be taken up by the county planning and zoning board April 25.

Pat Pelstring, president and CEO of National Renewable Solutions, based in Mayzata, Minnesota, on Thursday gave the planning and zoning department a 1½-inch thick notebook containing the company’s application for a conditional use permit to build a wind farm and a 3-inch thick notebook with support material.

NRS is working to develop Expedition Wind Farm, which grew out of a wind farm project that was originally the idea of Florence resident Rex Savage. NRS purchased the former Windborne Energy project in July 2018, renamed it Expedition Wind Farm, and has since been met with landowners and county commissioners.

In commission meetings, the notion of a second wind

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farm has been met with stiff resistance.

Pelstring’s documents include a list of 150 properties near the planned wind farm towers where landowners will have to be notified of the plan, and a list of 39 property owners — one of whom is Savage — who have signed leases with NRS. Numerous property owners have signed more than one lease.

Because of Windborne Energy’s earlier work to develop a wind farm in the area, there are four previously approved CUPs for the project.

Pelstring said more than 100 property leases are signed, and the company hopes to begin construction in August or September.

County commissioners at Monday’s meeting heard again from an objector to the proposed wind farm when rural Peabody farmer Randy Eitzen asked them to again consider imposing a moratorium on development of wind farms in the county.